CAZENOVIA — This spring semester, students in Cazenovia College’s advertising class were challenged to develop real-world ad campaigns for local businesses.

Eight students and eight downtown businesses teamed up to complete what Adjunct Instructor Kevin Mann titled “The Project.”

According to Mann, he selected the participating businesses, and each student picked their client out of a hat.

Otis + Matilda New York was paired with Noah Weaver, H. Grey Supply Co. with Taryn Kleaka, J.S. Hight & Sons Fine Wines & Spirits with Samuel Goldman, Matthew’s Salon Spa with Savanna Elliott, 20|EAST with Isabella Seidenfuss, Lavender Blue with Cyan Seibel, The Brewster Inn with Andrew Hansen, and Eye Love Optical Boutique with Kaitlyn White.

Apart from serving as a student learning experience, The Project was aimed at helping each participating business to showcase its unique story and expand its reach within the local community and beyond. The students’ ideas were intended to inspire their clients and provide a foundation for future marketing tactics ranging from social media activity and website updates, to print media, brochures, posters, and catalogs of products and services.

The project kicked off on March 28 with a two-hour input and briefing session, during which the students met the local business owners, familiarized themselves with the brands, and began brainstorming ideas.

The students dedicated the next couple of weeks both in and outside of class to crafting their advertising concepts.

According to Mann, the students were encouraged to visit their assigned businesses on their own time to speak with the owner(s), get to know their offerings and potential marketing challenges, and take photos.

Each student developed a client profile, a campaign theme, and multiple advertising concepts.

The students delivered their final presentations to their clients on April 13 in Cazenovia College’s Reisman Hall.

The first to present was Weaver, who revealed his designs for Otis + Matilda New York, a men’s and women’s footwear, accessories, and home boutique.

In two of his ads, Weaver borrowed the “+” from the business’s name to combine images of different products that might be purchased together.

“You can get a nice pair of shoes, why not get a nice handbag to go with it?” Weaver said.

Using the same idea, he also used the “+” to tie together different words that capture the essence of the business, such as NYC + CAZ, FASHION + LIFESTYLE, and COMFORT + LUXURY.

H. Grey is a modern-day general store and outfitter that offers a wide range of goods, including clothing, accessories, bath and body products, skincare brands, makeup, pantry items, household necessities and décor, and bar supplies. Last year, the store expanded and added an espresso bar and comfortable seating.

When developing her concepts for H. Grey, Kleaka homed in on the brand’s funky/retro theme, color palette, and dedication to inclusivity, diversity, and community. One of her ads featured rainbow stripes and the slogan “Come as you are leave with what you love” in a 1970s-inspired font.

Goldman provided J.S. Hight & Sons with inspiration for a new wine label-style logo featuring a stylized depiction of owner Judith Hight and her two sons. To help drive home the shop’s mission of providing a curated selection of exceptional wines at affordable prices, Goldman introduced the slogan “Top shelf wines always within reach.”

While researching Matthew’s Salon, Elliott took note of the business’s commitment to using Aveda-brand organic products and to creating a relaxing environment that nurtures each client’s “whole self,” not just the “beauty self.” One of her concepts featured a watercolor-style depiction of a woman with a botanical- and flower-inspired hairstyle and the words “Come stressed leave special.” Elliott’s advertisement for Matthew’s Barbershop focused on a vintage photograph and featured the addition of a barber’s pole to the salon’s traditional logo.

“When I first looked at [Matthew’s] website for the barbershop, it had an old picture of his grandfather when he started the barbershop, so I wanted to [give a similar] old-fashioned feel of getting your hair cut at a barbershop in the 1950s,” Elliott said.

Seidenfuss created multiple options for a logo that represents the 20|EAST farm store and Cazenovia Cut Block, which are both owned by McKenzie Houseman and operated out of her shop at 85 Albany St.

“Even though they have separate logos, they are all [McKenzie],” said Seidenfuss. “So, we wanted to look for a way to maybe combine them without stripping them away from their own personalities.”

By combining elements of both existing logos, Seidenfuss’ new logo design emphasizes that all of Houseman’s offerings, including local foods, gifts, flowers, and wood products, are available at a single location.

In her designs, Seibel combined photos of Lavender Blue’s curated French items with flower details, a lavender color pallet, and an elegant hand script font to capture the brand’s theme and the idea that the store’s offerings are “Hand-picked for you.”

“This is a specialty shop,” said Seibel. “[Owner Judith Warburton travels] to France to get tablecloths and other items she puts in the store. . . Anything you can find in her store, she hand-picks herself, so I really wanted to incorporate that into the designs I made.”

In his concepts for The Brewster Inn, Hansen made use of a selection of high-quality photographs and short, memorable slogans to advertise the resort’s luxurious boutique hotel, award-winning restaurant, outdoor bar, marina, and exclusive lakeside “1890 Table” — which he highlighted on social media with its own Instagram carousel of photos.

Present in each of his concepts was the slogan “Memories are the main course.”

“If you go [to The Brewster], you are probably going to propose to someone or you’re at some kind of event,” Hansen said humorously. “. . . You just don’t go to The Brewster because you felt like it. This is typically a planned outing.”

Through her conversations with Eye Love owner Shawna Clarke, White discovered that the business is about more than helping customers enhance their vision; it’s about helping them to select eye-catching pieces of art that suit both their unique faces and personalities. To emphasize the idea of glasses as art, White manipulated photos of individuals wearing unique frames to look like they had been painted on canvas. The images were paired with slogans like “Unique faces unique frames” and “Make a statement with just a look.”

Following the presentations, the business owners commended the students for their work, offered feedback on the concepts, and brainstormed how they might integrate some of the students’ ideas into their advertising strategies.

For example, H. Grey Co-Owner Alex Altomonte said he was eager to borrow Kleaka’s “Come as you are leave with what you love” slogan for a tote bag.

Matthew Dydo, the owner of Matthew’s Salon, was impressed by Elliott’s decision to use colorful, whimsical, and painterly depictions of women in her ad concepts.

“You see photographs of beautiful women with hair [everywhere],” Dydo said. “You see them online all the time, you can get them and put them in your ad. What I liked was the watercolor effect. I think what I would like to do is tagline ‘Aveda’ in there [because its recognizable and] an exclusive product in a way. . . But I think you nailed it.”

Houseman commented that she appreciated that the project made her reflect on her business and the messages she is trying to convey through her advertising.

“It was kind of cool to have to self-reflect,” she said. “You’re kind of just doing your thing all day and you don’t have to break it down, and then all the sudden you do. That’s pretty cool [because] then you kind of rethink some things like, ‘Oh, what do I mean? What am I trying to say?’”

According to Mann, each of the participating businesses will receive copies of their ad concepts to serve as an inspiration and a reminder of their involvement in this special partnership with Cazenovia College.

“The students in my class are from all over the area, and they have come to Cazenovia College to learn and to grow,” Mann said on March 21 leading up to The Project. “They’ve made friends, they’ve learned new skills, and they’ve made memories that will last a lifetime. The closure of Cazenovia College is a loss for the entire community, but I believe that the story of these students and their ad campaign is a positive one. It’s a story about the power of education, the importance of community, and the resilience of the human spirit.”

Mann is a branding and design professional with extensive experience in advertising and design.

He began his career in Chicago at Leo Burnett advertising agency, where he was responsible for print, television, and direct marketing projects for several high-profile national clients, including Kellogg’s, Keebler, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Johnnie Walker, and Dewar’s.

He is currently an associate creative director at Fingerpaint Group in Saratoga Springs and owner of Campdesign, a freelance design studio in Cazenovia that specializes in branding, graphic design, and advertising for small and regional clients. His clients include the Lorenzo State Historic Site, Cazenovia Public Library, Syracuse Stage, NBT Bank, Byrne Dairy, and Turning Stone Casino.

Mann has also served as an adjunct professor at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University for over 15 years, where he has taught creative advertising classes. His students have produced award-winning campaigns in print, television, and digital media, and have gone on to work on a range of brands and agencies.